VN August 2023

Augustus 2023 11 Female Vets in Practice In contrast, classic masculine traits include being competitive, aggressive, physically strong, being silent/stoic and being mathematically or technically orientated. These are all human traits and are expressed at various levels between the sexes. In themselves, none of these are negatives. But society has led us to believe that some traits are better than others. Who wouldn’t want a vet that was good at communication, emotive and nurturing? These feminine characteristics, along with biology, mean that these same people that make great vets may also want to build homes, raise families (however many legs you prefer) and care for their partners. As we all know,“You can’t have your cake and eat it”. What is the balance between a career and the rest of life? In the current vet shortage, we cannot afford to lose anyone as a result of restricting this balance. Now is the time for us to create something new. To start the transition from the brilliant groundwork already established, into a new, curvier mould. Is this easy? Not even a little bit. The model of veterinary practices as we have known it has to change. There are already so many practices listening to their teams’needs. They are adjusting working hours and schedules, finding niche markets, allowing people to learn and grow and in this acknowledging that happy people are productive people. As we see job adverts change and become more specific, appealing to potential employees’ values and goals and giving more of a hint of the practice culture, hopefully, more and more veterinary team members will find their homes. In my time spent within the Mpumalanga SAVA committee as well as in my role as a community service vet mentor, I have considered our profession both past and future. Would we not be better leaders if we were true to ourselves?Would our feminine characteristics aid us in this and allow us to become mentors for the generation to follow? Marie Clare posed the question:What does femininity mean to you, in 2022? Diane von Furstenberg answered“Femininity means not being afraid of showing your strength” For Priyanka Chopra Jones: “Today, femininity means defining our own personal standards and rules. It means owning our own bodies and being celebrated for who we are as people.” For me, femininity is about leading with love, emotion and encouragement. It is about being proud of all that I am. I am a vet. I am also a runner, traveller, reader, book buyer (to be clear these are separate hobbies), baker, archer, friend, daughter, business owner, romantic partner, gardener and dog mom. v Dr Trudie Prinsloo Written by a dear friend Dr Trish Oglesby I’ve known Dr Trudie Prinsloo since we studied veterinary science at Onderstepoort together and qualified in 1990. As far back as she can remember, she loved animals. Wanting to care for and protect them, it was natural she should grow up wanting to become a veterinarian. Looking back on her long and still flourishing career, she has not only dedicated herself to the protection of animals but also to the protection of the profession and the members in it. After qualifying from Onderstepoort, she worked in a small animal clinical practice and from there developed a varied, exciting and rather unique career. For all of us, our careers are crafted out of the opportunities we take along the way. Some veterinarians might know Trudie only in her capacity as legal counsel to the profession but there were many twists and turns in her career before reaching that point. First, she complemented her skills as a clinician by studying clinical pathology at Onderstepoort and obtaining an MMedVet from the University of Pretoria. Using this speciality, she obtained a position as a senior researcher at HA Grove Research Center at HF Verwoerd Hospital and later became a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Companion Animal Medicine at the Faculty of Veterinary Science, Onderstepoort. Besides lecturing, she’s published in journals, presented at local and international conferences and set up the Onderstepoort animal blood bank. After studying law and qualifying as one of the first lawyer-veterinarians in South AfricaTrudie worked as a state veterinarian in the Northern Cape, first as Deputy-Director of Laboratory and Epidemiology and then as Deputy Director of Animal Health. Here she gathered expertise in wildlife, state-controlled animal diseases and the legalities of import-export. This varied veterinary background has armed her with experience in a wide array of disciplines and allows her to bring to the legal table a vast knowledge in small, large and wildlife clinical practice, research, epidemiology, education and policy-making from both a private and public perspective. I asked Trudie what she would advise younger veterinarians starting their careers. She’d like them to believe that, with hard work and integrity, anything is possible. Don’t get bogged down in convention or the past and you will achieve anything you believe in. Sometimes when there isn’t a road to travel down one has to act like David Livingston and build one. That’s what Trudie did when she studied law. While rallying against animal abuse in the clinical setting, struggling to register blood as a product while working with the animal blood bank and playing what seemed like a game of animal health chess in the cross-border movement of animals, Trudie constantly came up against a lack of legal precedent. She studied law so she could better implement it. Since then, she’s legally represented individual veterinarians with legal actions against them, given legal advice to associations such as the South African Veterinary Association and National Animal Health Forum, drawn up guidelines and drafted policies. She constantly delivers lectures and writes articles so that veterinarians can better understand the legalities pertaining to their profession. An unwavering advocate of right above wrong, she humbly helps where she can but frommy viewpoint, she does more than that. She’s a veterinarian changing our profession for the better. I’m honoured to call her my friend. She’s thoughtful, loyal and kind. I like nothing better than to share time with her, especially outdoors, binoculars in one hand and bird book in the other engaged in friendly yet sometimes heated debate over the precise identification of some elusive bird. v Change what needs to be changed andmake the profession better for it.